My post for this week stems from a topic that was brought up on Monday about the variation that can occur throughout different college students, and how this may be a particularly troublesome flaw within the work of Kam and Palmer. As I brought up in class, to assume that every individual fitting into the “college” category is necessarily the same type of student or citizen is a bit overbroad. Kam and Palmer use this categorization to demonstrate that our college system may not be accomplishing its widely assumed goal: to make its students more fully educated (and generally, better) citizens for the nation. I beg to differ on this conclusion. While I make no argument that the collegiate experience cannot be improved, or that it will automatically make each student a model citizen, I do believe that the institutional nature of universities and colleges allows them to make available resources and opportunities that most people would never encounter without attending college. For this reason I believe that going to college has the potential for vastly increasing one’s value as a citizen, if only because it allows any individual to access new environments, interact with driven and highly educated individuals, and to learn their own efficacy within a system.
Though these benefits are available for everyone who attends college they are not necessarily utilized by everyone, and in my opinion this trend is what leads to results like those of Kam and Palmer. However, in my opinion this is no reason to disparage the collegiate system as it is currently. People may choose not to take advantage of the resources available to them, for it is often easier to “coast” through commitments, and as a result many people do just that. Still, I believe that this would happen in any system, and that no matter how many changes are introduced, some students will always find the easy way out. It sounds disheartening, but in fact it’s just reality. My point is that while some students will always shirk the responsibilities and therefore not be as affected by their experience, others will take advantage of the opportunities available in college, and will indeed become better citizens as a result. Further, I believe that this will be the case regardless of the system in place, and that therefore Kam and Palmer should not assume that college’s inability to yield and 100% success rate makes it a failure.
This being said, I do agree fully with Kam and Palmer’s assertion that the most influential time frame in each individual’s life is most likely their elementary school years. I believe that if a change is truly to be made with regards to making citizens more participatory and civic spirited, the change is to be made in elementary schools, where standardized testing and “tracked” students create an environment that discourages critical analysis and debate. We also discussed ways by which this could possibly be brought about, and though we heard some decidedly negative results about the past efforts in France, I would love to see some attempts at making these crucial early years of education more open and discussion oriented.
Citizen Competence in American Democracy
For me too, Kam and Palmer's argument just didn't quite sit right when I think about my only college experience and what I think is and would like college to be. College may not directly make people more likely to engage in certain political activities, but I'd like to think it shapes a more holistic, perhaps subjective view of a good citizen - someone who is tolerant, open to varying viewpoints, opinions and backgrounds. Hopefully too, it can teach or at least improve upon the kind of ethical and leadership skills that college graduates can put to use.
ReplyDelete